


Rowan

by Bubbly_Kandy



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Allergies!Jeremy, Angst, For SquipGrandma, Gen, I feel the need to apologize, I love this au so much ghnn, Jeremy practically gets posioned, Sickfic, The working title for this was 'Mallo Cups For Michael 2k17', Theyre both pining ok, Vomiting, faerie!Jeremy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 22:12:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubbly_Kandy/pseuds/Bubbly_Kandy
Summary: Faeries, despite looking invincible, also had weaknesses.Michael finds this out the hard way.





	Rowan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnceAndFloral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceAndFloral/gifts).



When Michael was little, he thought that Jeremy was invincible, an unmovable force. Maybe it was because Jeremy had such an emotionless facade up so often, his face blank and eyes glassy, that Michael dubbed him as immune to any and all diseases and ailments.

Michael never got that sick, either; the longest he had gotten sick was, well, the unfortunate dancing incident in ninth grade. Other than that, though, the two boys were the healthiest children that their families had ever seen.

Of course, _healthy_ never always meant _stable._ Take, for instance, fourth grade, where Jeremy had started panicking at recess and, in return, made his magic go awry. ‘Awry’ meant the ground started shaking minutely, causing a panic to wash through with the rumor of an earthquake in New Jersey.

In addition to that, Michael mostly learned the hard way about fae weaknesses. For example, iron, quite literally, burns faeries. This was discovered in third grade, when Michael had unknowingly been given an iron ring by a teacher who, in her defense, didn’t know that Michael was so touchy-feely with his friends. Michael had slipped the ring on, commented on how pretty it was, then ran to show Jeremy, urging him to cover his eyes. The plan was to have Jeremy hold out his hand, and Michael would slip the ring on his finger, and then have him admire the piece of jewelry with Michael.

What happened instead was Jeremy crying out in pain, shaking the ring off of his finger, and running away from Michael, finding reassurance and safety underneath the pine trees that were clustered in the back of the playground. Michael pocketed the ring, then ran after him, only to be stopped by Jake, who told him about how iron affects the fae folk. In shock, Michael threw the ring away, then went to apologize to Jeremy, who had forgiven him with a shaking voice.

Running water was also a problem, though not a very bad one. Sometime in the middle of Sophomore Year, Jeremy and he had been walking around in the woods behind his grandparent’s cottage, Jeremy skipping a little in excitement, and then stopped in his tracks in front of a stream, which was merrily bubbling along over some rocks. It was a pretty wide brook; it would definitely require taking off your socks and shoes and rolling the pants of your jeans up to cross. After some cajoling from Michael, Jeremy admitted that he couldn’t cross running water himself, and if he did, he would get swept away or whatever.

This was solved when Michael took his socks and shoes off, advised Jeremy to do the same, and then picked Jeremy up like you would a little kid, with a squeal of “Michael, what are you _doing?”_  Coming from the other boy. Michael just laughed and crossed the river, Jeremy clinging to the collar and hood of his hoodie and keeping his legs wrapped around the taller boy’s waist. The two had light-heartedly argued about it afterwards, but Jeremy had thanked him for carrying him across both ways, despite the lilac flowers behind his ear being crumpled from him being so frazzled.

Jeremy was also allergic to bread. This didn’t come as much of a surprise to Michael, seeing as faeries would get extremely ill after eating even a bite of the stuff and it being a well-known fact within fae folklore, but it was irritating, having to distract Jeremy from staring at a loaf of bread in a store for too long. Seriously, _fuck you,_ fate or whatever the fuck, having bread be fatal for faeries but, at the same time, be a lure to them. What a shitty system.

Michael did try to learn about the fae weaknesses. However, whenever he would go onto the internet and look up ‘fairy illnesses,’ this would happen.

_Google search: Fairy Illnesses_

_Top Results: Disney’s Tinkerbell Wiki_

No thanks, Disney. I don’t care about your ‘fairy pox’ or whatever. Jesus.

Finally, at one point or another, Michael found the other spelling for fairy, which was faerie, and that opened up a whole new world.

Damn. Disney was getting to him.

Anyways, when he looked up faerie illnesses, he got fairy doctors, ailments caused by faeries, and a bunch of dumb stories about men screwing up their relationships with fairy women. (Though there were some about fairy women being weird. Seriously, the whole ‘I will leave you if you strike me three times’ thing sounds great in theory, but if he pats you on the back when you’re in extreme pain, you don’t count that as a blow.)

But one thing that was not even spoken about and told to Michael was how rowan berries (Not to be confused with Mountain Ash berries or Rowan Blanchard, thank you very much,) affected people like Jeremy. It was probably one of the scariest times that the two had been through, other than, you know, the incident with dancing.

Jeremy, on Valentine's Day in Junior Year, had been given a small, heart-shaped box of chocolates by a ‘secret admirer’ in his locker. When the two got back to Michael’s house and started to look at what they had gotten as gifts that day, Michael teased him about it until he blushed pink, batting Michael’s bicep in a scolding manner with his fingers. He then unwrapped the plastic wrap, popped the top off of the box, and his eyebrows furrowed.

It was well-known that Jeremy had a huge sweet tooth. Whether it be always having at least one sweet food per day or making his own candy or pastries himself, he would mumble embarrassedly about his fae lineage having to do with it. Then again, a lot of things were because of his lineage. It was a sore spot for him, so it was something Michael never teased him about.

The chocolates in the box were clearly homemade, and there were little sprinkles on all of them. Jeremy took one out, placed it on his palm, and offered it to Michael, snorting when Michael looked at him, his cheeks filled with Mallo Cups and puffy because of them.

“I was gonna offer you this, but-” Jeremy snickered before putting the chocolate back into its place, “You look a bit busy right now.”

Michael scowled and swallowed hard, coughing as the chocolate coated his throat.

“Shut up. Besides, it’s your _secret admirer,_ ” Jeremy blushed as Michael poked him and smirked, “So you should just eat it.”

“I swear, it’s like you’re the secret admirer,” Jeremy grumbled, and Michael blushed before looking away. Jeremy popped a candy in his mouth, then made a face, swallowing before exclaiming, “There’s berries!”

“What kind?” Michael asked, grabbing another pack of Mallo Cups and ripping the package open. Jeremy shrugged and picked another chocolate up, inspecting it closely.

“They’re super sweet, but kinda… tart, I guess?” Jeremy bit into the chocolate, looking at the inside. “It’s red!”

“Raspberries?”

“No, no, it’s not like that at all, there’s not as many, uh, as many seeds, just-” Jeremy was rambling, listing his theories about the berry jam. Michael just nodded along and listened, eating his own candy and offering some Gushers to Jeremy, who waved them off, saying, “No, I gotta figure this out first, otherwise it’s gonna bother me for the rest of my life.” He stared at the chocolate a little more, then stuck it in his mouth, humming. He brushed the flowers clustered behind his left ear away from his face, the ones behind his right starting to circle around his head like a flower crown.

Jeremy ate another chocolate, then gave up, grabbing a packet of Gushers that were already opened but not touched. Michael finished about half of his candy, (There was a lot, so Michael was going to be hyper for the next few hours) but Jeremy only finished about a third of his before his skin started to look pale. Well, paler than usual.

Jeremy, despite looking just dandy ten minutes before, suddenly looked… not dandy. At all.

A sweat started to break out across his forehead and temples, and his eyes looked blank as they stared forward. It took Michael a few tries of elongating his name to get Jeremy to react, which was only a little ‘huh?’ That was barely audible.

“Jeremy? Buddy, are you okay?” Michael asked, the sugar already in his system making his heat pound a little harder than was necessary. The magic radiating off of Jeremy was suddenly sour and heavy, making Michael feel a little nauseous.

“I- I don’ feel good,” Jeremy mumbled, starting to sway back and forth, back and forth. “I’m-” The shorter boy suddenly gagged, his hands flying up and covering his mouth. Ignoring the sour and strong waves of magic that made him feel heavy-headed, Michael looped Jeremy’s arm over his shoulders, hoisting him up and placing a steadying hand on his hip. He quickly walked and placed Jeremy by the toilet, the poor kid barely being able to support his own weight.

Jeremy sat by the toilet for a few seconds before gagging again, Michael kneeling by him as he puked, coughing out apologizes in between heaves. Michael only rubbed his back, shushing him quietly throughout his vomit session.

About five minutes later, Jeremy spat miserably into the toilet, whining at the gross taste in his mouth. “‘M sorry,” He sobbed, sniffing pathetically. Lavender tears fell from his eyes, and Michael only grabbed some paper from a new roll of toilet paper and wiped them away, rubbing the paper over his chin as well before dropping it in the toilet bowl.

“Hey, it’s okay, it happens-” Michael soothed, then placing the back of his hand on Jeremy’s forehead, then cheeks, then the back of his neck. “Oh, Jesus, you have a really high fever, let’s get you to bed, yeah?”

Jeremy just hummed, nodding before letting Michael pick him up and bring him to his bed, flushing the toilet with his foot pressing down on the handle before he did so.

When he got Jeremy situated in his bed, Michael went to get fever reducers, a thermometer, and a bowl, just in case. If it was any other time, Michael would’ve blushed because _holy shit Jeremy was in his bed,_ but he was worried now, dammit.

Once Michael got two little pills and a glass of water, he gave the objects to Jeremy before stepping out and calling his mom, the woman apologizing because she wouldn’t be home for another six hours because of her job as a bartender. Michael forgave her, but then said his goodbyes and hung up, going back to his room, got the thermometer, rolled Jeremy over from his curled-up fetal position, and stuck the stick in Jeremy’s mouth, despite the other boy making unhappy noises in the back of his throat.

Michael waited until the stick beeped, then pulled it out and let Jeremy flop back down on the pillows, returning to his previous position.

 _102.6_. Shit.

“Jeremy?” Michael shook his shoulder, Jeremy apparently not being capable of words, instead whimpering. “You have a pretty bad fever, so I’m gonna have you take some pills, alright?”

“Mmph-!” Jeremy stuck his face into a pillow, and Michael noticed the lilac flowers behind his ear. They were wilting, and a few petals were brown. Fuck. Was that healthy?

His fingers brushed over the flowers, and a few blossoms detached and fell. He mumbled out a quick apology, then poked Jeremy until he was able to take the pills without choking to death or anything.

“Jeremiah, you better not die in my bed, I sleep in this thing, y’know,” Michael joked, and Jeremy only weakly stuck his tongue out.

“I’ll try my hardest,” Jeremy said, then his eyelashes fluttered as he fell asleep. Michael brushed his hair away from his forehead, then got up, running the thermometer under cold water and humming.

Hopefully Jeremy wouldn’t get sicker.

\---

Jeremy’s fever went down from 102.6 to 100.2, but he looked out of it and disoriented, like the world was spinning way too quickly for him to process. He didn’t throw up again, but he was sleeping in in-and-out intervals that, when he was awake, would only look at Michael through half-lidded eyes before falling back asleep.

Michael was justifiably worried. He combed through the candy Jeremy had gotten, looking closely at the ingredients to see if there was an suspicious abundance of salt or grains. All checked out, until he got to the heart-shaped chocolates.

Since they were homemade, there was no way to tell. Still, he threw the box away, and crammed the rest of the candy underneath his bed.

Michael checked Jeremy’s temperature again, the stick reading 99.6. Okay, this is fine, good, no need for the hospital. Yay.

(Sarcasm.)

Michael played on his DS until Jeremy woke up again, staring at Michael with more lively eyes. The boy sat up and crawled over, placing his chin on Michael’s shoulder and watching him play the game.

“You missed an enemy,” Jeremy pointed out, his voice scratchy. Michael’s sprite rounded back and killed the enemy, mumbling an ‘thank you.’

“You feeling better?” Michael asked after he beat the level, turning and placing the back of his hand on Jeremy's now-cool cheek.

Maybe he’s going crazy, but Michael swore that he saw and felt Jeremy lean into the touch.

He’s tired. He just was extremely sick, so he’s just tired. Yeah, that’s it.

“I’m doin’ okay,” Jeremy admitted once Michael’s hand left his cheek. “Thank you,” he smiled, and Michael saw that his flowers looked more alive and purple.

“You’re welcome.”

Jeremy then pawed at the DS, a quiet ask to play. Michael handed it off, and Jeremy started a new level.

Later, Michael was awake until 4:30 AM, researching trees and berries that were toxic to faeries. He found hazel and rowan being the most likely, but hazel had bark and rowan had red berries, and rowan berries were tart but sweet once you put sugar, and rowan berry jam was very easy to make.

  
Michael fell asleep trying to figure out how to find the ‘secret admirer’ that gave Jeremy the chocolates. He was going to have and _very_ long talk with them once he figured out who did it.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaa this took a week
> 
> For SquipGrandma! I hope you like this :0


End file.
